Break Me
by MirrorDede
Summary: I've always wondered about Break's transition from tortured post-Abyss Kevin Regnard into the joyful clown we know. But to get there, Break will need to be "broken" and Liam is just the man to help.


**Time: soon after Kevin/Xerxes emerges from Abyss.**

**Third person, Liam's POV**

**Rated T for violence (yes, violence, and lots of it)**

**I've always wondered about Break's transition from tortured post-Abyss Kevin Regnard into the joyful clown we know. But to get there, Break will need to be "broken" and Liam is just the man to help. [After I wrote this I realized Liam was probably only about eleven years old at this time, so maybe not exactly a man, but still.]**

**Break Me**

_There he is,_ thought Liam, _the grumpy one who yelled at me the other day when I told him to stop hurting his empty eye socket. He kind of scares me, but somehow…he reminds me of myself._

Liam knew very well how it felt to be gazed at with derision by other people. He, too, had experienced sneers and sidelong glances throughout his life. Maybe it was because of his fragile calm, so quick to shatter into nervousness. Or perhaps it was his poor eyesight and his need to wear glasses.

Whatever it was, he sympathized with the mysterious white-haired man leaning against the garden shed. The shed looked like a dirty little cottage and the strange man – who had been dubbed Xerxes, for lack of any better name – was seated on the ground, with his back against the side of the shed, and his knees drawn up to his chest.

"Xerxes….san?" queried Liam, warily. "May I have a word with you?"

Xerxes looked up with his one red eye, his face a map of misery.

"Something's been troubling me," Liam said, not waiting for a reply. He half-kneeled in front of Xerxes and asked, "I need to know…why were you…hurting yourself the other day?"

Xerxes looked irritated at the question.

"Because I _hurt_. Isn't that obvious?" he grumbled.

"So…you hurt, so you…hurt yourself _more_?" Liam asked, truly perplexed.

"Of course!" barked Xerxes. "Is it so hard to understand?"

"It is hard for me. But I _really want_ to understand," Liam said, face betraying his concern. "Can you help me understand?"

"You're just making fun of me like all the others," muttered Xerxes.

Liam would have given up, but for the faint sound of the other man's voice cracking, and the deep look of sadness in his eye, which hinted of tears that needed shedding.

"I'm not. Honestly I'm not," Liam said, in his most sincere voice. "I want to help you."

"Then hit me!" said Xerxes so suddenly, that Liam nearly lost his balance.

Liam looked around to see if any one was watching.

"You're embarrassed to be seen out here with me aren't you?" said Xerxes, sneering. He stood up, and pushed open the door to the shed. "Come inside. If you're honest about helping me."

Liam stood up, walked through the door of the shed, hands and knees shaking slightly. Xerxes shut the door and the two men were alone in the shed, which was lit only by the light from small windows on two sides.

"Hit me!" said Xerxes again, bowing his head.

Liam stood there stunned. He'd never raised his hand to hurt anyone in his life.

"_Hurt_ me!" said Xerxes, in a pleading tone.

_He really wants this,_ Liam thought. _I have to try, even if I don't understand how this will help._

Liam raised his hand and slapped Xerxes across the face.

"More!"

So Liam slapped him across both cheeks repeatedly until they were flushed almost as red as his remaining eye. The feeling of slapping another person was unsettling for Liam, but strangely satisfying all the same.

"Hit me here!" Xerxes said, pointing to a specific spot over top of his heart.

Liam raised his fist in the air, and landed it on Xerxes's chest, on the left side near his heart. He pounded again and again, felt his heart racing - he remembered the last time he'd felt this way – it was when Master Barma had smacked him repeatedly with his fan. He had always wanted to hit his master back, but never had the nerve. Now, standing in front of this pitiful white-haired ghost of a man, he found the release he sought, wailing against that thin and vulnerable chest as if he hated the person inside it.

"Harder!" pleaded Xerxes, his face darkened by pain.

Liam punched him again and again in the same spot, frightening himself with his own effusion of anger. The intense expression of the other man's remaining eye was the stuff of nightmares, and at last, Xerxes unleashed a gasping groan, and stepped away.

Liam thought he'd had enough, but was wrong. The other man grabbed a shovel and thrust it into his hands.

"Hit me with this now." He knelt and bowed down in front of Liam, in the manner of a knight. Liam gingerly smacked the shovel across his shoulder blades a few times, afraid to damage him with the sharp edges of metal.

"Hit harder!" begged Xerxes. "Please…hurt me!"

"I don't want to really hurt you," Liam said, surprised at how choked up his voice sounded.

"Hurt me!" cried Xerxes. "I deserve it…I need to be punished!"

"Why?" Liam begged to understand what was tormenting this poor man so, while smacking the blunt side of the shovel against his shoulder blades.

Xerxes gasped, "I've done…unspeakable things…I can't tell…anyone about."

_What could he possibly have done? He seems more a danger to himself than anyone else. Could he have…killed someone, perhaps an innocent child?_ The thought that Xerxes might have killed a child spurred Liam on to beat him further, harder. He was sweating from the effort and losing his breath.

"Hurt me! Make me bleed! BREAK ME!" Xerxes screamed.

Liam rolled the shovel over and began whacking the other man with the blade. He saw dark bloodstains on his white shirt, and fought back tears of horror, revulsion and pity.

"BREAK ME! Make me…feel…so…so… broken…" Xerxes sobbed, then collapsed on the ground.

Overwhelmed, Liam could no longer see through his tears to aim properly with the shovel. He fell to his knees, grasping onto Xerxes for support, then burst into fitful sobs.

The two lay crying together in a crumpled heap for several minutes.

_What hell has this man gone through?_ wondered Liam. _He just dragged me down into it with him…and it was an oddly familiar place._

Then Xerxes sat up slowly, wiped his face with his shirtsleeve, and looked at Liam intently. _His face,_ thought Liam,_ I never thought I'd see such sympathy and kindness on that man's face. _Xerxes touched Liam's wet cheeks gently with his fingertips, and then threw his arms around his shoulders, holding him close.

"Thank you," he panted, clinging to Liam.

"Y—you're welcome," replied Liam, trembling. _He's so warm…so real…so human._

"Thank you…for breaking me," said Xerxes, pulling back. He looked Liam directly in the eye, a faint tinge of a smile on his lips.

"Now…I can begin…to put myself back together again."


End file.
